Soldier
by Shadowed Horizon
Summary: Her pettiness almost surprises her, but after all she is sixteen, she has almost no family left, she hasn't once felt truly safe in seven years and she can't help but crave a different kind of security. Hypothetical Jean/Mikasa.


"Huh."

Mikasa swings the axe down, neatly splitting the log in half before flicking her eyes to the right. Eren has paused in arranging his own log on the stump, looking thoughtful. "What are you thinking?" she asks, when he's silent for another few seconds.

They both continue chopping the wood that Sasha and Historia have collected earlier. "Isn't it weird," Eren huffs, "how everyone in the squad gets along so well now?"

Mikasa shrugs. "No. What's weird about it?"

"Well, you, me and Armin have no problems." Mikasa says nothing. "Sasha and Connie goof off too much for anyone to really dislike them. Everyone likes Christa – no, Historia, ugh, I keep forgetting. Levi – he might lose his cool if he catches Sasha with another potato – but he tolerates us, I guess."

"Yeah, and?"

Eren frowns at the log he has just split. "And, uh, Jean doesn't argue with me anymore. Or anyone, really. I wonder when the last time…"

She shrugs again. "We've been living together for a month now. Surely you'd expect us to get along by now." She doesn't disagree with him – before, during training, she'd only ever interact with the other trainees if she absolutely had to, and she barely spoke, even to Armin and Eren – but she doesn't know where he's going with this and isn't particularly interested. To Mikasa, good intergroup relations just mean that Eren – and Historia – are well-protected. And that's pretty much all she cares about.

Eren makes a face that Mikasa doesn't see. She's always so much more logical than him. "Well, yeah, I guess. But we lived together for three years during training, too, and we always fought over _some_thing."

"Levi wasn't breathing down your necks though," Mikasa smirks. "Having him around must make you two really watch your mouths more than usual."

Eren points his axe at her in mock seriousness, blade angled toward the grass. "Watch it," he says, but his voice is light and Mikasa smiles at him before stacking her quartered logs off to the side.

They continue with the task in silence. Some time passes – they're almost finished splitting today's load of logs – when Eren pipes up again, mild curiosity colouring his tone. "Hey, does Jean still, you know, talk to you?"

Mikasa rolls her eyes towards him and snorts but doesn't bother replying. She knows what he's asking, but it's such a badly worded question and she's not letting him off that easy. Eren rolls his eyes back and backtracks defensively, "Don't look at me like that – you know exactly what I mean – does Jean, does he – flirt with you?"

"Yes," she sighs, then quickly thinks back. "I mean, no." She's surprised to realize it, and Eren is too. She adds, "He flirts _at_ me," and Eren laughs. It feels good to laugh like this, so carefree.

"But really," Eren says when their giggles are reduced to smiles, and Mikasa shakes her head. "Good. It was pathetic."

She nods, but Mikasa has never really been one for gossip and is kind of glad about that now. So she listens to Eren go on about Jean's _lame_ attempts at catching her affections, making non-committal noises when he pauses for breath, feeling slightly defensive (and insulted) on Jean's behalf.

They _are_ lame, she'll be the first to admit it, but they were twelve when they joined the military and it's not like the training grounds foster good social interaction skills (let alone romantic relationships – "the way you cut those Titans' necks doesn't come close to the way you've cut straight to my heart", ew, no thank you). But she doesn't _dis_like Jean in any way for it; in fact, if she's brutally honest with herself, she sort of misses his pick-up line failures. Okay, no, she does miss them. Way more than she ever thought she would.

"…and the first thing he ever said to you, what was it? 'You have beautiful hair?'" Eren sniggers, "I _almost_ threw up, it was that bad."

"After all these years, the truth comes out," Mikasa teases. "That's the real reason you told me to cut my hair, isn't it? You couldn't handle him going on about my a_ma_zing hair?" She flips it for emphasis, both laughing again. They exchange a few more quips about her hair as they finish up, but the one thing Mikasa doesn't mention is how Jean has, at least, complimented her more than Eren has.

Her pettiness almost surprises her – almost – but after all, she is sixteen and she has not once felt truly safe, truly content in the last seven years. With almost no family left, and with Armin and Eren both in constant danger from being in the Survey Corps (and in Levi's Special Operations Squad, no less), she can't help but crave another kind of security. She wonders what having a boyfriend would be like. She wonders – Mikasa's face heats up a little, though it's hardly the first time she's entertained this thought – what it would be like to have _Jean_ as a _boyfriend_.

"I bet you're glad Jean's finally stopped, huh," Eren says as they carry the stacks of wood between the stumps and the cabin. He's not really expecting an answer; much less one that contradicts him, so Mikasa just nods shortly. Disappointment aside, it is, at the very least, one less thing for Eren and Jean to argue over. "I mean, you'd never go out with him. He's just so…_Jean_-ish," Eren continues, wrinkling his nose in disgust over the idea of his sister being together with that horse-face.

Mikasa nods again, but this time she means it. Sixteen and hormonal or not, she is still Mikasa Ackerman: top graduate of the 104th trainee corps class, soldier of the Survey Corps' Special Operations Squad under Lance Corporal Levi. And that means that before all else, her life is dedicated to protecting Eren and Historia (not that she wasn't already dedicated to Eren from the start) and to hell with her feelings when the time comes. Titans won't stop for her tears and neither can she. So (not for the last time, she's sure) she squashes down her emotions and musings and when she and Jean go to relieve Connie and Armin from their night watches at opposite ends of the cabin, when Jean yawns and rubs his face and softly tells her to stay safe, she looks into his eyes briefly and nods crisply and for some reason salutes before turning heading to the left post. She misses Jean's quizzical, concerned look at her rigid back, doesn't see him open his mouth and close it without a word; but Jean doesn't notice how Mikasa's lips are pressed more tightly together than usual, doesn't see how her shoulders slump the instant his soft tread passes from her hearing.

* * *

**A/N: **I don't really ship Jean/Mikasa (Jeanmarco is my OTP, _all_ the freaking way), and I'm fairly certain Eren/Mikasa is canon anyway, but the idea presented itself to me so hey why not? This kind of reads like an Eren/Mikasa story though, but it's not. Although if it makes you happier that way then okay.

Hope you enjoyed it!

**-S.H.**


End file.
